Tag: Taxes

In this episode I address the strong likelihood that the collusion hoax is really a cover story for the Clinton campaign’s dealings with a Putin-connected oligarch. I also debunk liberal talking points about tax reform and I address corporate censorship of speech.

In this episode I address the futile liberal rage campaign against Trump. I also discuss the Left’s new strategy to derail Trump’s Supreme Court pick. Finally I address the superiority of free markets over socialism.

In this episode I address the explosive information contained in the court paperwork in the leak investigation. I also address President Trump’s comments at the G-7 and the recent decision by the DOJ which could decimate Obamacare.

Are illegal immigrant laborers putting money into the pot just like the rest of us? That’s what a number of pundits on the left have claimed, usually with a figure in the range of $10-12 billion a year.

PolitiFact rated the statement “Undocumented immigrants pay $12 billion of taxes every single year” from María Teresa Kumar of “Vote Latina” true – even though the “$12 billion” figure was based off of payroll taxes, half of which is paid by the employer. On the other hand, her estimate didn’t include state and local taxes.

So there appears to be some truth to the claim, but first let’s answer the lingering question of how the heck illegal immigrants are paying taxes in the first place.

That’s where the “Individual Taxpayer Identification Number” comes in. The IRS issues ITINs to individuals that must file taxes, but either don’t have or are ineligible for a Social Security number. ITIN’s are issued regardless of immigration status. Of an estimated illegal immigrant workforce of 8 million, 3.4 million, or less than half, are registered with ITINs and are paying taxes. So the majority are not.

And of those who do, let’s take that $12 billion figure at face value and put it in perspective. In 2017, the Federal government spent $4 trillion, or 10.95 billion per day. The entirety of the nation’s taxpaying illegals don’t even pay enough in taxes to cover what the federal government spends in a day (because the 12 billion figure includes taxes paid to state and local governments).

And this is from eight million workers. The American labor force had roughly 160 million workers in 2017. Just for the sake of a thought experiment, if we were to replace the entire labor force with illegal immigrants, and have them pay all their state and local taxes to the feds, the Federal government would’ve collected approximately $240 billion in tax revenue in 2017, as opposed to the $3.3 trillion that the Federal government actually collected in 2017.

And seldom do those pointing out that illegals pay taxes mention how much they take from the pot.

Because illegals displace legal American employment (100% of which would be paying taxes – and likely at higher wages), illegal immigrants impose a $30 billion annual cost in lost tax revenue.

Because of pressure on wages, illegal immigrants are costing American workers $118 billion annually in lost wages.

the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds the net cost of illegal immigration (i.e. net of taxes paid by illegals) to be $116 billion. This is particularly noteable, because they assume that illegals pay $19 billion annually in taxes – far more than our liberal friends typically claim.

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s study on the same subject finds a comparatively lower $55 billion net cost to American taxpayers.

Health care costs for illegal immigrants alone total nearly $20 billion, or almost double what they pay in taxes, according to American Enterprise Institute scholar Chris Conover.

So yes, we are getting about $12 billion a year in tax revenue from illegals.

Problem is, it just costs a heck of a lot more than $12 billion to collect it.

In this episode I cover the disturbing details about how the Swamp really works. It’s a deeply corrupt enterprise. I also address a brewing controversy over the Trump tax cuts bill and a cryptic reference by a Jim Comey ally about Loretta Lynch.

“That 90% top rate in the 60s wasn’t as crazy as modern context might make it seem. And remember, the economy thrived” tweeted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who somehow has a Nobel Prize in economics.

“The income tax rate, through the early 60s… is I think 91% on incomes over $200,000.” said author Malcolm Gladwell. “The thing is, if you bring this up now, people don’t even believe you that was in place 50 years ago.”

Gladwell is famous for stating that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill, but it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes of research into historical tax rates to prove the above arguments wrong.

As everyone that has filed taxes knows, the marginal tax bracket they fall into isn’t the effective tax rate you pay, because of deductions, and other factors. In the past, the tax code was ridden with loopholes.

When the Revenue Act of 1935 was passed, raising the top income tax bracket to 75%, literally only one person paid it; John D. Rockefeller.

It is true that we did use to have massively high marginal tax rates, but it was never the case that we had high effective marginal tax rates. Nor are the top rates comparable of the past comparable in the levels of income they affect. The new top income tax rate for households of 32 percent kicks in at $315,001 of income. The 91% rate in 1955 kicked in at an inflation adjusted $3.5 million in todays income.

If we isolate just the much-maligned top 1% of income earners, their tax rate is less than 6 percentage points lower today than what it averaged in the 1950s. A decline for sure, but hardly the 60-or-so percentage point decline claimed.

The unprecedented efforts by the FBI to hide the documents describing the origins of the Trump/Russia investigation are all making sense now. In today’s show I discuss the scandalous scheme that could destroy our faith in international intelligence cooperation. I also discuss liberal efforts to manipulate suburban voters and China’s “doomsday weapon” in the trade wars.

In this episode I address explosive allegations by a central player in the Russian “collusion” story about who funded the operation. I also discuss the Democrats’ new tax plan and how it’s a rare moment of honesty about their intentions.

In this episode I address the vitriol directed at Second Amendment supporters and the CNN townhall. I also address the budget disaster and the ridiculous Obama team economic criticisms of the Trump team.